Construction Technology
By the end of May 2008, nearly a third of tunnelling was completed, and excavation of the tunnels was completed on 11 September 2009.
A mixed-face Earth Pressure Balance Shield Tunnel Boring Machine (TBM) was designed and built in Germany by Herrenknecht specifically to cope with complex underground conditions and was the first such machine employed in South Africa. The TBM, named Imbokodo (meaning "rock"), installs pre-cast concrete tunnel lining segments behind it as it moves forward. It leaves behind a watertight and smooth lining to the 6.8 m (22 ft 4 in) diameter tunnel.
Read more about this topic: Gautrain, History, Construction
Famous quotes containing the words construction and/or technology:
“The construction of life is at present in the power of facts far more than convictions.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“Radio put technology into storytelling and made it sick. TV killed it. Then you were locked into somebody else’s sighting of that story. You no longer had the benefit of making that picture for yourself, using your imagination. Storytelling brings back that humanness that we have lost with TV. You talk to children and they don’t hear you. They are television addicts. Mamas bring them home from the hospital and drag them up in front of the set and the great stare-out begins.”
—Jackie Torrence (b. 1944)